The pan-blue-dominated Procedure Committee yesterday decided to include in Friday's plenary agenda an amendment proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus to the National Pension Law (國民年金法) that would allow farmers to choose whether to join the national pension system.
The amendment, proposed and endorsed by 40 pan-blue legislators, said that the law, which will take effect on Oct. 1, would require all farmers, many of whom participate in farmers' insurance plans, to join the national pension system.
However, farmers who only have to pay a monthly premium of NT$78 in the farmers' insurance system would be obliged to pay NT$674 every month after joining the national pension system, the proposal said.
KMT Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡), one of the lawmakers who initiated the proposal, said the Cabinet failed to understand that farmers may not be able to afford the increased premiums.
Farmers would also be unable to enjoy the same amount of funeral subsidy -- about NT$153,000 -- they received from the farmers' insurance system if they chose the national system, the proposal said.
The legislature will decide whether to put the proposal to committee review during Friday's plenary session.
The Procedure Committee also blocked several bills proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party caucus, including a draft bill that would require the KMT to return its stolen assets and the Cabinet's request to abolish the Organic Law of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Management Office (
Meanwhile, the legislature decided yesterday that it would discuss a proposed amendment to the Value-Added and Non Value-Added Business Tax Act (
The Cabinet passed and sent the proposal to the legislature in December in support of the government's efforts to stabilize commodity prices.
The amendment was written in response to figures showing the country imports nearly 100 percent of its supplies of the four staples, whose prices are closely linked to that of crude oil.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS